


This is a Story About Spring

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:16:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4308282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard revisits a place of her past and realizes that everything has since changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is a Story About Spring

“The lilacs are in full bloom this year.”

They are, Shepard agrees. Pale purple, barely there yet still poignant in her mind, peppers the Presidium as though it were something she needed, _desperately_. It’s funny, she thinks: this must be what hope feels like. The feeling is fleeting, like a ghost slipping between her fingers, like wet dew dripping down the callous of her knuckles. For the first time, she can stare out, beyond, and take it all in without worrying about what would come tomorrow. Her breath hitches; her eyes close.

There’s no breeze, but she can imagine it: gentle, at first, but soon carrying her burdens off her shoulders in a swoop of grace and strength; it tickles her cheeks, her ears, whips her red hair into her freckles, caresses her like a lost lover, reassures her—she’s alive, she’s _alive_ —and then, when it whispers off into nothing more than a wisp, it pulls along her arm as though it didn’t want to leave, and the motion she imagines forces her gaze towards the life— _her_ life—standing next to her.

This time, her eyes are open. There’s a gentle hand atop hers (when had she been gripping the railing so tightly, she wonders?) and a thumb brushing against her knuckles. This must be what love looks like, Shepard thinks, as she removes her hand from under Liara’s grasp and brings it to the swell of her belly. She’d never imagined, not if you told her seven years ago, that this, _this_ , would be something she wanted, needed. This—life, a family, someone with the scent of spice and home and adoration to brush against her like a memory, just there to remind there that she has something to come back to, that there’s no need to head on up to that bar somewhere in the sky, because she has everything she’d ever need right here, in this moment.

And Shepard thinks; thinks about the asari, the turians, the krogan, the quarians, the geth, the batarians, the humans. She doesn’t just think, though; she remembers, too: remembers all too well the choices that had brought her here, now, alive, while others died to give her this chance, this choice. Jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship, she had only barely grasped the foothold she needed to scrape by—barely, only _barely_ , she thinks, saving the galaxy in some fortune of good luck.

It’s almost funny. She’s been doing a lot of thinking lately, but she wasn’t very good at it.

So, instead, she imagines. She thinks she’s pretty good at that.

There’s no humor, but she can imagine it: Joker, standing at her side, pulling another crack after a rather horrifying mission; EDI, with her misguided sense of humor, heart always in the right place despite her punchlines falling short (or walking through the door, in the case of one poor Commander and her awkwardly terrible dancing moves); Garrus, and his obsession in calibration; Tali, oh sweet drunken Tali, don’t ever change, don’t _ever_ change. This must be what a dream feels like—like she doesn’t really deserve this life; like it’s too good to be true; like it’s glory hallelujah in the pearly gates of heaven, and there’s a patio with a rocking chair where she can relax and stare at acres of wheat for decades for no reason, because that’s just how dreams work.

“Remember,” Shepard begins, “when we were here, three years ago, and I didn’t want to just be friends?”

Liara chuckles. “How could I not? I was hopeless back then; I couldn’t tell if you liked me if you had sent me a letter, wrote _‘I love you, Liara T’Soni,’_ and signed it.” She’s joking, Shepard can tell, but her cheeks still flushed. Some habits die hard.

_The quarians, on Rannoch, their oddly simple miscommunication problem solved, learning to breathe—live—again._

Shepard smiles. “In your defense, we didn’t really have a whole lot of time to go on dates. What with saving the galaxy and all.”

“But now we have all the time in the world.”

“That, we do.” Shepard agrees. Her palm rubs circles, and Liara leans into her, arms wrapped around her as though afraid she’ll pull away, but never. Never. Not. Again. Shepard knows she would die before anything could tear them apart—they’d spent too many years separated, and she still had to make up for it, somehow. Somehow.

“I’ll never leave you,” she blurts out. “Not again.”

“Never again,” Liara murmurs in agreement, pressing her lips against Shepard’s arm, and though she sounds solemn, Shepard can see the hint of smile against the corner of her lips—giddy, like a schoolgirl’s dream. Amazed, like this was impossible. Maybe it was. But impossible never stopped Shepard before.

This sounded like a dream, like a joke, like a cliché. And maybe it was all three.

There’s no rush, but she can imagine it: their daughter, a small blue bundle in her arms. For her, this is the afterlife: cradling the object of her affections, devotions, love, as though she could hurt her if she held her any other way. Liara prods at her, tells her she’s _coddling_ the poor girl. But Shepard ignores her, smiles instead; she doesn’t want this to end, not when she’ll grow up to be as amazing as her mother, as brave as her father, and everything in between them. Now, she’s just guessing, she thinks, but she doesn’t care. She’ll be great—she knows. Any daughter of hers.

(And _oh_ , there will be more daughters. Shepard doesn’t plan to stop at just one; Liara promised her children, not just a child. No, this just the start.) Wrex, she remembers, gloating not only about the number of children he’s already sired, but the fact that his eldest—Mordin, is his life, and Shepard—his second, is his pride. She wouldn’t put it past half the galaxy to name their children after her, but part of her hopes not. Just one, or even two Shepards, is enough for the galaxy. But the world could always use an extra Liara.

Jacob, and his wife, and their child. She wonders how they’re doing—the three-year-old she only remembers from holo pictures on her omnitool, but she could recognize the subtle face shape that reminded her of her former crewmate. Tali, and Garrus, the odd couple that they were; she laughs to herself, because it’s so hilarious of her to think of them. She imagines what hell of a family reunion it’ll be.

And. _And_.

Children. The boy. Shepard freezes. Her arm runs cold, suddenly, or perhaps Liara warmed. She pulls her sweaty palm away, cold, thrumming heartbeat in her chest, suddenly heated by the flames of an inextinguishable fire. Thinking. She’s thinking again, and she needs to stop, before—

Fleeting, just fleeting. It was there--the hope, and then it was gone. Just like that.

Everything rushes. Everything, at once. The Primarch’s son, Wreav, Thane, Mordin, Legion, EDI, _Anderson_ —

“Shepard?”

She doesn’t hear—how can she hear, when there’s an insistent buzzing in the back of her mind, telling her of all her misery and failures.

Her hand retreats to the railing once more seeking support, seeking a ledge, something, _anything_ , but instead she finds it in a warm, blue hand. It pulls her back.

“Hello,” Liara teases, apparently noticing Shepard’s crinkled brow: a motion that carried her deepest thoughts.

“Hi,” Shepard clumsily grins, chuckling, and she’s half-saying it to Liara and half-saying it to her unborn daughter. Liara’s hand moves to join atop hers, fingers lacing, and it’s then that she realizes her hand was merely hovering above her daughter, too scared to touch, for fear she might break. And then, with Liara’s guidance, it meets the smooth fabric of her maternity shirt—God, she just looks amazing in anything, even pregnant and tender.

This must be infinity, she thinks. A moment in which everything and nothing happened, all at once. Her mind was racing, but around her the world seemed to still. It was just them, pulled together by a force stronger than anything she’d known of.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Shepard agrees, though the memory of how desolate it once was keeps crawling into the corners of her eyes.

“This is where we promised. Every day after.” Liara looks at her and blinks, breathes, as though she’s reminding herself that Shepard is alive and standing right next to her, holding their unborn daughter.

“Starting today,” Shepard agrees.

“Starting every day,” Liara corrects. “I never want a single day to go by without you in my life.” She nearly frowns when she realizes that she won’t be able to keep such a promise.

“Well,” Shepard teases, disregarding her negative thoughts, because Liara deserves more than that, “you’re lucky I feel the same way.” Liara’s heart gives way at her words, and she can’t resist but lean forward and press a peck against her lips—instantly, her senses are flooded with _Shepard_. Shepard in her nose, her lips (she licks them, for good measure), Shepard in her hands, her mind and soul. The scent of apple shampoo and sweat and skin. Her eyes smile as she counts each and every freckle on Shepard’s cheekbones, but frown when her lover—her _bondmate_ —looks away.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, brow furrowing, hand tightening to keep Shepard’s hand on her belly, as though she might pull back suddenly.

Shepard shakes her head. “No, everything’s fine. Everything’s great. Better than great, actually. I have a wonderful bondmate, and a beautiful daughter on the way.”

Liara smiles. “Of course. I am just as happy about all these things as well. But you seem tense.”

Shepard laughs, though it stirs a swell of pain in her chest, trying to break the tension. But she fails, and instead she clears her throat awkwardly, rubbing her thumb absentmindedly across Liara’s belly.

“I guess I’m just worried about the whole ‘being a dad’ thing,” she says, truthfully. She knows better than to hide something from Liara, the Shadow Broker, holder of her heart, and reader of her mind. Through each meld, it feels as though Liara knows exactly what she’s going to say before she says it—think before she thinks it—and feel before she feels it.

Liara chuckles. “It’s a change of pace.” Shepard frowns. “To see you nervous,” she adds quickly.

“Only for you,” Shepard laughs with her.

There’s a moment of silence between them, when the only existing forces in the universe were the gravity pulling them together and the entropy trying to pull them apart; the scent of life, marked by water droplets and grass dew and a nauseating feeling in the pit of her gut. She wishes for a moment she had a glass of spiced wine, for at least then she would have something to occupy her mouth that did not involve talking—and perhaps it would erase this obnoxious cotton mouth feeling, like her tongue was too thick for her mouth.

“You’ll be an amazing father,” Liara finally says, having tortured her bondmate enough. “And I’m not just saying that because our daughter’s father will be Commander Shepard. Because our daughter’s father will be _Jane Shepard_.”  She pauses. “She’s excited to meet you, you know.”

Shepard’s eyes widen. “She is?”

“Sort of. There’s no coherent thought yet, but when I feel her mind, I am overwhelmed with an immense curiosity. About us, and the world.” Liara’s smile widens.

“Well, I guess she gets that from you.”

“Or rather, she will get that from me. When she is born.” Liara corrects. “But I have a feeling she will be a lot more like you than you care to admit.”

“The last thing I need is to worry about how she’ll be handling a gun when she’s older.”

Liara’s left hand comes around to meet Shepard’s shoulders. “There will be time for that. For now, just be glad that the only thing she’s capable of is kicking—and rather hard.” Her blue eyes gleam. “I think she gets that from you.”

“You think so?” Shepard teases, but there’s an edge of sincerity to her voice. The thought of her daughter, _her_ daughter. Her _daughter_. It stirs something in her—something she didn’t know she had.

Liara nods, and Shepard recedes to her judgment. But she thinks, still, for a moment, even though she knows she shouldn’t, and opens her mouth to speak.

“No,” Shepard disagrees, “I think she’ll be just like you.”

Spring is, she thinks, like perhaps the prologue of a paradise. And this, she knows, must be her spring.


End file.
